By Ray Hanania
Free/Entertainment/Monday March 11, 2024
I used to always look forward to the Academy Awards and the presentation of the Hollywood Oscars. That was back in the days when Hollywood made better movies, films that relied more on talent than on Computer Generated Images (CGI). And while the films had a social message, they were still bult ont he foundation of entertainment.
The Oscars would help me and the rest of the public decipher through the blur of the movie industry publicity.
Ever since COVID, though, the movie industry output has been paltry. There are very few films I want to see. Movies from the 1950s, 60s and 70s relied more on talented dialogue and compelling storylines rather than on visual effects that numb the brain.
It used to be that our imaginations partnered with the films to create a great individual experience. Nowadays, the CGI overshadows both the stroylines and the talent. Any idiot can wave a saber in front of a movie screen filled with amazing CGI fantasy, but it took real talent to wow the audience with good acting, dialogue and plot.
Photo by Mirko Fabian on Unsplash
Maybe that’s why the Academy Awards degenerated into platforms for partisan political lobbying.
You’d think that after 96 years, the Oscars would age with grace. Instead, they are becoming senile suffering from elderly abuse and exploitation. No talent characters like Jimmy Kimmel go on stage and use the entertainment platform to advance their own political agendas using humor that is in the same ugly category as race humor.
I can’t even watch the Academy Awards anymore. The luster is gone. The focus has shifted from great films and acting to message and conflict.
There have been controversies in the past. But they were exceptions to the event not the focus.
I remember when Vanessa Redgrave, who won “Best Supporting Actress” in 1977 for her role in Julia, a film about theHolocaust, found herself being attacked by violent protestors angry with her views on the Middle East. The “Jewish Defense League,” later labeled a terrorist organization, opposed her views on the Middle East.. Paddy Chayevsky, the pro-Israel screenwriter and novelist who wrote the racist anti-Arab movie, Network, lashed out against her and defended the JDL.
And there was Marlon Brando who won the Best Actor for his role as Vito Corleone in first The Godfather film in 1973 declined the award and had Sachean Littlefeather, a member of the Apache Tribe, address the Oscars explaining why Brando had rejected the award, citing the film industry’s racism against Native Americans.
It was no different I guess when actor Will Smith walked up on stage to slap comedian Chris Rock when he made a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith in 2022. The incident was censored by the networks by videos of the incident made it through social media making it a major scandal.
Yet none of those individual incidents come close to dragging the Oscars down the path of degradation as do the hosts who have been brought in to “entertain” Hollywood’s spoiled and wealthy elites.
Jimmy Kimmel, who launched his career berating women with sexual jokes, now hosts a bastardization of the once entertaining lineup of late night talk shows woth the likes of Jack Paar and Johnny Carson called “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” The show is actually a lie, of course, since it hasn’t broadcast live since 2004, and is pre-taped because of challenges the ABC network has in bleeping out and censoring outrageous material. Yet still, Kimmel manages to spew out a lot of ignorant trash that is funny only to people who hate former President Donald Trump.
Kimmel has had a platform twice on the Oscars and his humor only undermines the Academy Awards real purpose to focus on movies, actors and great performances.
Kimmel is the exact opposite of Carson whose talent allowed him to make fun of politicians without swimming in the gutter or by using blatant name calling. Carson had talent and he creatively slammed politicians and addressed issues, but never focused on any one politician or individual using destructive “humor.”
Kimmel is a symptom of the erosion of Hollywood and representative of most of the other late night talkshow hosts who turn to hate and name calling to illicit cheap laughter. He;s not funny. He is like a standup comedian who uses the “F-word,” instead of great jokes, to elicit laughter from a drunken comedy club audience usually dominated by young people who think swearing is talent.
Jimmy Fallon, a successor to The Tonight Show on NBC, is the only late night entertainer who even comes close to Carson’s talented and creative humor. But he gets criticized for not stepping into the gutter and joining the partisan political stampede.
If you wan tot make a case for euthanasia, the Academy Awards and the Oscars should be front and center. They have outlived their usefulness and become platforms for the promotion of ignorance, not talent.
Let’s be honest. The Oscars suck! The movie industry is failing. And the only talent that is acknowledge is talent wrapped in partisan political garbage.
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